An international competition is now to proceed to find a design for a new Abbey Theatre. Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue announced yesterday that the Government had approved the holding of the architectural competition.
The new theatre, which is to be sited at George's Dock in Dublin's docklands, will replace the existing venue in Abbey Street, which is expected to be sold to partly fund the new facility.
The new theatre is to be developed on the basis of a public-private partnership arrangement, but the PPP process will not be instigated until after a design has been selected.
The building, according to the department, "will be procured by means of a Build/Finance/Maintain (BFM) Public Private Partnership" and will be a "signature development".
It will include three performance spaces to accommodate the Abbey and Peacock theatres, and a third multipurpose auditorium, as well as education and outreach facilities, a public archive, a restaurant/bar, improved public areas, disabled access for audiences and artists, and state-of-the-art theatre production facilities.
The project will be overseen by an inter-agency panel including representatives of the Department of Arts, Sport and Tourism, the National Development Finance Agency, the OPW, the Abbey Theatre and Dublin Docklands Authority.
Mr O'Donoghue said an international competition would attract designs to ensure that Ireland would have a national theatre to rival any theatre in the world. The new theatre would provide us with a setting, stage and arena worthy of the "global pre-eminence" of Irish theatre.
The decision to locate the Abbey to a site provided free by Dublin Docklands Development Authority followed several attempts to find a new home for the theatre.
When the Minister confirmed the new site last December he indicated that the project would be part of a public-private partnership.